Will Smith Loses Bad Boys Director Michael Bay on Upcoming Movie Fast and Loose Over Creative Differences

Will Smith won’t be having a Bad Boys reunion with director Michael Bay on the upcoming Netflix movie Fast and Loose.

Though both had signed on to the project, PEOPLE has confirmed that Bay, 60, won’t be directing the film due to creative differences he had with Smith, 56. Deadline was the first to report the news, claiming Bay wanted the film to focus on the action elements while Smith was more inclined toward the comedy.

Representatives for Netflix, Smith and Bay did not immediately return requests for comment.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fast and Loose, “focuses on a crime boss who loses his memory after an attack and gradually learns that he was leading a double life as a CIA agent.” The film is set to begin filming in October.

Bay and Smith first worked together three decades ago on 1995’s Bad Boys, the blockbuster buddy cop action movie starring the Oscar-winning actor and Martin Lawrence, 60. Bay also directed 2003’s Bad Boys II, but did not return to direct 2020’s Bad Boys for Life or 2024’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

Smith was best known as a rapper and as the star of the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when he broke out as an action hero in Bad Boys, which was Bay’s directorial debut. He previously said that Bay turned him into a “movie star.”

“So Michael Bay was shooting this scene, and I wanted to have my shirt on. And Michael was like, ‘Dude, I’m gonna make you a frickin’ movie star! Take your shirt off,’” he said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2020.

“I was like ‘Mike, come on man, running with your shirt off? Come on, man.’ And he was like ‘Dude, you don’t know! I know,’” he continued.

“So we compromised in that scene. I was like Mike, ‘I have to have a shirt. I’ll have it open, just not off.’ And we compromised, and it was one of the iconic scenes from that movie,” added Smith.